


Ares Plays Angry Gay Chicken with Himself and Loses

by Ciaossu



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciaossu/pseuds/Ciaossu
Summary: He reaches for his phone, fumbling with his eyes closed, but eventually it settles in his grip. His hands shake as he thumbs in his passcode and pulls up his contacts. Lene. He hates to wake her, but he knows she understands.His dad’s name is the first his brain registers. It sits there in his contacts, even though he knows the number long since stopped working. He scowls at it before scrolling down.





	Ares Plays Angry Gay Chicken with Himself and Loses

Ares wakes with gunfire and shouts echoing in his ears. He gasps for breath and stares into the darkness of his room that just echoes the lingering images back to him. His eyes squeeze shut. He is here, not there, he is safe, he is alive, he is

He reaches for his phone, fumbling with his eyes closed, but eventually it settles in his grip. His hands shake as he thumbs in his passcode and pulls up his contacts. Lene. He hates to wake her, but he knows she understands.

His dad’s name is the first his brain registers. It sits there in his contacts, even though he knows the number long since stopped working. He scowls at it before scrolling down.

 

“Good morning!”

Ares scowls again. Seliph. Darling Seliph, who he shares a class with. Popular Seliph who is smart and kind and loved by his classmates for his charming smile, never mind that his father-

Lene elbows him in the stomach. “Good morning.” She replies, with enough force it’s clear that it’s meant from the both of them. Ares scowls deeper. She ignores him.

Seliph lets out a laugh that has to be practiced for how sweet it sounds. “Rough night, hmm?” Seliph asks, as if Ares needed confirmation that his eyes have bags or that he didn’t have the energy to care for his hair as he should have. (His father always has perfect hair. Had. It’s a disservice on Ares’ part to look anything less.)

Lene steps in before Ares can snap that it’s none of Seliph’s business. Lene, who smiles and laughs as easily as if he didn’t rouse her in the early hours of the morning. Seliph takes her bait and Lene manages to usher him away with just a quick look back at Ares over her shoulder. He’s thankful. Lene has an effect on people Ares could never hope (or want) to. It works well in moments like these.

With perfect Seliph out of his life for now, Ares stalks off to his desk.

 

“Okay, but did you know he could freaking sword fight?”

Ares hadn’t known, nor did he know why she expected he would’ve known, but Lene was too busy staring over at a stupid, perfect, blue head of hair, he doubted she would listen to his reply anyways.

Ares scoffs and flicks his bangs out of his face. “No. And I don’t care either. Lene scoffs as well, but Ares ignores her. “Just because he’s in the club doesn’t mean he’s good. He probably can barely hold the damn thing-”

Lene hushes him, and she really didn’t need to. Seliph’s opponent lunges in suddenly, but Seliph parries easily, as if the movement was natural to him. He takes the chance and pushes in and in the moment that Ares blinks, his opponent is disarmed and on his back with the tip of Seliph’s foil aimed at his throat.

“Woo Seliph!” Lene cheers, and it’s the loudest thing in the whole room. Ares flinches and goes to shush her, but Seliph is already looking their way. He’s surprised, it’s clear, with his face flush and eyes wide, but he smiles as easy as always.

Lene waves back. Ares scowls. Figures that perfect Seliph would be handsome too.

 

“...so what do you think about trying this one?”

Seliph shoves another case in his face. Ares is forced to lean back and scowl at it, as if Seliph really expected him to have enough on old war documentaries to have a preference. Not that Ares didn’t like history. He just didn’t care when it came to spending time with perfect student Seliph.

Assigned partners that weren’t Lene were an annoyance. Assigned partners that were Seliph was a straight out curse. 

“It’s fine.” Ares grunts and turns away. Seliph nods and pops the dvd from the case and slides into his laptop. They library is quiet, so they have to wear headphones, but Ares doesn’t care. The sooner they watch this, the sooner it is over and he can stop sharing earbuds with Seliph and the sooner they can both leave.

And the movie is interesting, once his ire ebbs enough to listen. Informative, interesting visuals, more than they need for a solid assignment.

Gunfire suddenly tumbles out into his ear and Ares tenses.

The actual war rages on the screen now, and bullets fly and men scream, explosions go off and his father yells as his mother crumbles and-

Seliph says nothing as Ares rips the earbud out and walks out of the library. It takes Ares a while to come back. When he sits back down, Seliph passes him the earbud, eyes on the screen. The movie hadn’t stopped playing while he was gone, already past the moment of violence.

Ares grumbles a thanks and shoves the earbud back in.

 

“So is it true?”

Ares blinks. He doesn’t know who this guy is, leaning in his face and questioning him, or any of his friends. All he knows is the redhead is far too close for comfort. He steps back and scowls defensively. The stranger just waits. “What?”

He smirks and every part of Ares knows he doesn’t like it. “You’re the one with the dead parents, right?” The stranger leans back with arms crossed, looking amused at a joke Ares doesn’t quite get.

Joke or not, Ares bristles in a way that makes the redhead and his groupies laugh. (Though the others clearly have the sense to be nervous.) Ares brushes past, knocking the redhead’s shoulder roughly as he does. “Fuck off.”

“Temper!” The kid shouts, turning to look at him as Ares tries to leave. “It was just a simple question, no need to get so pissy about it...y’know, if that’s the attitude you have, maybe they deserved it. Punishment for raising such a shitty so-”

Ares throws the first punch, and it’s so worth it when he feels that brat’s nose break.

 

“Ares?”

Ares groans but it has nothing to do with the soreness in his bones now. He rolls on his side and does his best to push himself to his feet. Of course perfect Seliph would somehow be the one to find him, why would it be anyone else?

As far as he was concerned, Ares had won that fight. The kid had left cursing with a bloody nose and bruises that were sure to hurt in the morning. Ares was strong. But they did have numbers, and strong or not, Ares couldn’t block multiple fists flying at him.

Everything hurt.

“Easy now!” Ares hisses as Seliph grabs his arm. There’s a rushed apology, which Ares ignores as he tries to move out of Seliph’s grip. “What happened to you? You look like you...do you still have all your things? Should we call the police? I can-”

“Seliph.” Ares forces out. The hiss catches Seliph’s attention and he settles down. “I’m fine. It’s none of your business. Let go-”

“Ares.” There’s a force behind it when Seliph says his name, enough to get the blond to pause and look at him. Seliph’s frowning, looking at him with determined eyes and Ares, too tired to care anymore, wilts under it. He sighs and nods.

“Fine. Just call Lene for me.”

Seliph nods and starts guiding him off somewhere

 

His wounds are tended to as best as they can and Seliph sets him down to sleep on his couch for the night, insisting it’s too late to be travelling to his place like this. Seliph seems ready to offer Ares his bed until Ares barked at him to go to sleep and stop worrying.

Sleep isn’t hard for Ares to find. Not with exhaustion in his bones and a soreness in his body pulling him down. It’s staying asleep that’s hard.

A familiar symphony of shouts and gunfire sends him shooting up from the couch. He doesn’t get the chance to go fumbling for his phone this time. Before he can think there’s warmth in front of him and he clings. He clings and buries his head against them and shakes and breathes. His eyes squeeze shut and he sits, alive but so unsure that he should be.

Seliph doesn’t judge him as he mumbles what’s surely nonsense late into the night. Seliph just hushes him softly and strokes his back and murmurs that it’s okay, he’s safe, he’s okay.

 

Years go by and Ares still has the nightmares. This wasn’t some fantasy wizard story where time and Seliph’s love somehow made everything better instantly. Ares still has bad dreams and a bad attitude to match. They’re less now. Manageable.

He passes Seliph the bowl of popcorn as he plops down on the couch next to him. Seliph hits play and leans against him, so Ares puts an arm around him as only natural. Batman. He’d never pegged Seliph for a superhero type.

And it turns out he’s right as within moments a gun goes off and Batman’s mother drops her pearls on the ground. It’s all overdramatic, but he can feel Seliph tense and glancing at him. As if he’d gone into this not knowing that Batman’s parents died and the movies would never let that go.

He doesn’t know what Seliph expects from him, so he just snorts and grabs a handful of popcorn. “Wow. That’s a mood.” Seliph doesn’t laugh, Ares hadn’t expected him to, but he does relax next to him. Ares shoves the popcorn in his mouth. It doesn’t take long in the hazy afternoon warmth for the two of them to get lulled to sleep.

It’s not perfect. But Ares loves it.

**Author's Note:**

> Ares is basically batman I don't make the fucking rules I just enforce them.


End file.
